


mirror, mirror

by eyemoji



Series: none of us are okay [2]
Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: all aboard the pain train, choo chop, someone give eiffel a cookie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-09
Updated: 2017-08-09
Packaged: 2018-12-13 10:19:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11757786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eyemoji/pseuds/eyemoji
Summary: they’ve given you an ultimatum, you think.





	mirror, mirror

**Author's Note:**

> eiffel got what he deserved. eiffel's not a bad person. eiffel doesn't know that.

they’ve given you an ultimatum, you think.

it’s not true and you know it, but that doesn’t stop the words from nipping viciously at the inside of your skull:  _ because of you….aggressively inept … endanger our lives… utterly reckless and completely irresponsible… to distract you from how much you can’t stand yourself….what don’t you do?  _

 

and it’s a good question, isn’t it; what don’t you do, what  _ won’t _ you do? inject yourself with a poison far more deadly than your own bloody lies; it’ll bring you to your knees as you gurgle and thrash and flash back to another time you were in this room, only  _ you _ were the one strapped to the operating table, with moans and groans and coughs so strong they hid how weak you were, as you choked through bloody lips on blood you didn’t bloody have. you did it because of how weak you are, you told yourself, still beating yourself up one last time before you delivered the final blow and oh well who cares it’s worth it, worth it to help the others, to help the others in the only way you can because  _ you’re so damn incompetent, eiffel _ . 

you shake in your goddard-issued boots as you’re tied to a chair and your hair falls in your eyes but you can’t lift a hand to brush it away, can’t lift a goddamn finger to help her when she runs her mouth for you, because  _ she’s _ brave and  _ she’s _ bold and she’s funny and gung-ho and everything you wished you could be and she’s throwing it all away for what? for you, you undeserving piece of shit; “take the trash out,” minkowski will say, not even one day later, and your heart will plummet as you try to brush off the unshakeable feeling that deep down she means  _ you _ . kepler will bait you in the hallway. you will jump at the chance-- not just to get him to shut his big mouth about someone who probably never wants to be your daughter, but to redeem yourself, because at least you can do this, subdue the big bad 360th wolf, right? come full circle, 360 degrees, one for each of the stars he’ll see with each punch you land, gritty and  _ personal _ and maybe, just maybe, a little girl 7.8 light years away will see the resulting constellation that forms? wrong. less than half an hour later you will find yourself in the bridge with an arm wrapped around your waist and a gun to your head, and it’s almost  _ tender _ , isn’t it, how he holds you; how the cold metal of the glock cradles your head as minkowski looks up at you with tired eyes and says nothing but your name,  _ “eiffel.”  _ she doesn’t have to say anything else. 

there are times before that too,  _ god _ there are so many times, but the one that jumps to mind immediately with a vicious sort of vengeance is when you blast yourself off into the heart of darkness, speeding miles away from home faster than you’ve ever sped before, only this time there’s nowhere to crash, no passenger in the backseat whose life you can ruin again, no oncoming spaceship to stop you in your tracks and get you, well, if not  _ home _ , then  _ somewhere _ \-- except there  _ is _ , and they  _ do, _ and now what do you have to say for yourself young man? 

 

they never ask.

 

you’ve been hoping they will,  _ aching _ inside for someone to stop and turn and look into your not-quite-a-murderer’s eyes and say something just a little more substantial than “are you alright, officer eiffel?” although if you’re being honest, even that would sound just dandy to you about now. the last time you heard those words in a way that meant something seems decades ago, now, when you were trapped outside during a solar flare (how innocent) and minkowski had bounded outside with her jetpack to save you, yes, but after the fact you’d lain awake in that hospital bed you didn’t know you’d someday come to despise, and hera had come over the pA, worried, relieved,  _ whatever _ and all you know is that it’s nice to be appreciated.

maybe that’s why you get more reckless; maybe, if you try hard enough, you can scare them enough to snap them back into their senses; the hiccups method; stretch out their patience and temperance and belief far enough that they’ll rebound with a passion and finally,  _ finally  _ sit up and listen.  _ shut up and listen, _ maxwell had said on those tapes, had  _ commanded _ them, but no one is listening, you think, and you’re not sure how much farther you can push before you snap.

 

the way you see it, you have a choice. two options. you’ve been walking on a slippery slope for far too long now anyways, and they’ve just pushed you over the edge.  _ they’re right, you know, _ says a tiny voice in the part of your brain you just love to ignore, but you’re not ready to deal with that quite yet, because that means taking yourself apart a little and baring how you tick, wind-up boy, broken record, and that level of existentialism is supposed to stay ground into your bones, into the very shape of you, not rise up to the bubbling surface of your hopes and dreams and fears and pervade your every waking moment-- like it’s already been doing, for the past year, but you ignore that too. 

 

option one: be the man they want you to see, the man they say they know you could be, even if you don’t see it in quite the pinkish light they do, because for all the optimist you claim to be,  _ you’re _ not the one with the rose-tinted glasses; but hey, no arguments; you’re the pacifist, and you’ll sure as hell start trying. that is, if you want to. it’s tempting, so tempting-- they’re your  _ friends _ after all, douglas; what kind of idiot would give that up? you want to convince yourself that you can do it again, glaze yourself in a shiny veneer of  _ normal _ if that’s what it takes to piece this broken crew back together;  _ kintsukuroi _ , glue them back together with gold, so you’ll be more glittering and valuable than ever.  _ and more fragile, _ they never tell you in the online how-tos. maybe that’s why it’s an ancient art.

 

but maybe your brain isn’t all so up for the scenic route this time; maybe it’s time to take the road not traveled, and it’s what everybody conveniently forgets about what mr frost had in mind, isn’t it, that’s it’s  _ not _ , not  _ less _ , but for you it’s just easier to block out the past, isn’t it, make like a tourist and scram. pretend that here we’re wanting wear, _ though as for that the passing there had worn them really about the same- _ \- how many  _ times _ have you thwarted a crisis only to be met with guilt as kepler’s guile or lovelace’s fire or minkowski’s stubbornness gets in the way of a happy ending [1]. remember when it was all three? 

 

you know, and frost knew, and the cold seeping into your heart as you lie spread-eagled, face-down on your miserable little mattress with the straps only half on knows that it’s the road not taken that makes all the difference.

 

so here’s where option number two comes in: throw all that happy-talk aside; this isn’t a sunny island in the south pacific and you’re not here to be  _ loved _ . you have a job, officer eiffel, and if there’s one thing that your evil twin boom boom wow over there has over you, it’s his ability to get. shit. done. you remember. that day, when minkowski almost mutinied and got herself brigged and, oh yeah,  _ doctor maxwell almost  _ died, and it was just another casual day for everyone on the goddamn station except. except for him. jacobi. and so maybe you’re more alike than you’d like to admit-- or, well, at least to yourself, considering the number of times you’ve referred to him as your  _ dastardly clone _ and oh wait-- that’s another stupid thing you’ve been running your mouth off about, see, because once upon a time there was a module and ninety-six hours and  _ two daniel jacobis. _

 

_ idiot,  _ you think to yourself. not that it makes a difference, now.

 

you shake your head to clear your mind, to push away the doubt and guilt and whatever else is threatening to well up inside that cesspool you call a skull. back to option two, aka become a hermit crab of the fifth dimension; curl up inside your little shell and only speak when spoken to, work when ordered to,  _ communicate _ when the star decides its time to beat you black and blue and back again. hold your breath. keep your head down. try not to cry.

 

fail.

 

then try again.

 

you get up. that’s what you’re good at, right? according to minkowski, at least, and really, you didn’t mean to hurt her, honest, until  _ she _ started to hurt  _ you _ and how come she doesn’t have to apologize for that? is it really worth it, to hold out for the long haul, play another cold war right into goddard’s slimy hands, into kepler’s arms and jacobi’s knife and a flash of steel across your throat before you can even attempt to cry out for help-- this is what you’ve got yourself into, you think, as you stand in front of the observation deck, hand on the door knob, old fashioned and cool metal and  _ real _ , unlike the other hundreds of doors on this suddenly liminal space of a station, breath somehow colder and slower and heart hotter and faster and  _ louder _ as you wait as gingerly as if your life hangs in the balance.

it doesn’t. 

that’s new.

 

you let yourself in, after what feels like forever, and nothing happens; no alarm bells go off, hera doesn’t descend to rat you out, isabel lovelace doesn’t pop up to give you another lecture you won’t be able to take. 

 

kepler and jacobi do not look up. well. kepler doesn’t look up. jacobi’s eyes flicker up before falling back to where they were staring at the floor below. it’s just once, just barely, but it’s enough. enough to save you from your own skin, slap you out of your self-induced disassociation because all along you’ve been afraid of not being real. of being a lie, made up to satisfy someone else’s twisted nightmare of an already bad dream.

jacobi’s acknowledgement cures that, at least. you now feel like you owe him something. you know that makes him dangerous. you stay anyways. your hand still hovers by the closed door, and your eyes are more frantic than usual, but you clear your throat and attempt to speak and look appropriately sheepish when nothing comes out.

 

the silence is awkward and full and real, and you begin to suspect, unfounded, that he already knows what’s happened; that privately, he’s laughed it over, whether to the wall, or with his former boss, that somewhere deep down inside all those layers of fabricated steel, he  _ pities _ you. and this hurts. another point in jacobi’s favor, and really, you should get the hell out of there before your voice  _ does _ begin to work and then too late-- because your mouth is open and his mouth is open and you cut yourself off with a choke, but he doesn’t, and his words are all-too familiarly laced with his own special brand of acid when he spits out,

 

“why are you here?”

 

you have no answer. the answer is you don’t know. the answer is, you might as well be one now, one of them, a  _ prisoner _ . unwanted, unnecessary, a nuisance. hell, at least  _ jacobi _ is useful with the engineering. all you have to your name is the brand of the  _ chosen one _ , not across your forehead in the shape of a lightning bolt, but in the very structure of you, in  _ the fingernails you are not supposed to have. _

they should throw you overboard, vent you out an airlock. you consider that the only reason they  _ don’t _ is because the dear listeners ( _ bless them, _ you think in the most sarcastic tone you can muster,) will bring you back. at least  _ they _ care, in a twisted kind of way. 

twisted. like a car on a highway whose name no one remembers.

the follow-up thought to jacobi’s question floats unbidden into your mind: you might as well be one of them  _ again _ .

 

you say nothing and jacobi says nothing, but he doesn’t have to, because just then you just with a start as a voice you hope and hope every day to never hear again starts laughing. it isn’t a nice laugh, all caustic and creaky and signaturely slow, but it  _ is _ a  _ warm _ laugh, and that, more than anything, scares you. it pulls the fear out of your marrow and releases it to the air; a vampire of emotion is he, the colonel, kepler. you think you finally,  _ finally _ understand why hilbert called him the second most dangerous man at goddard futuristics. you wish you had never met the first.

 

as you flee back into your quarters, slam the door as much as you  _ can _ slam a door in microgravity, ignore the pull of the black hole that is your empty bed, covers still rumpled from when you’d lain down hopelessly earlier (like you always do,) and rush into the bathroom. there shouldn’t be mirrors on the hephaestus-- unnecessary, costly, promote vanity; but, for some reason, there are, and you’ve never been more grateful. you stare into your own blank eyes, trying to make sense of the person that lies within, trying to ignore the red rims and the dark circles and the tearstain so permanent you doubt even whatever amount of isabel lovelace’s blood resides in you--  _ alien _ blood, you remind yourself before you can still the thought-- can wipe them away.

 

there’s really no question, you know, of your competence (nonexistent) or your happiness (ditto) or the chance of you having any sort of future where everything isn’t broken and the sharp bits inside you don’t crunch against your sides like someone ground up the looking glass and made you swallow it (are you seeing a pattern here?)

 

so really, the question you need to ask yourself is this:

 

_ mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the worst of them all? _

 

(it’s you.)

**Author's Note:**

> [1] _“ and wanted wear;_  
>  Though as for that the passing there  
> Had worn them really about the same,”  
> \-- “The Road Not Taken,” Robert Frost
> 
> TRNT is a pretty famous poem, but in case you haven’t read it, or want to have it up next to this when you, dare i say it, re-read, here: http://www.bartleby.com/119/1.html
> 
>  
> 
> thanks to the wolf discord for inspiring this as well as letting me steal a couple of quotes-- specifically, from knee (gortysproject, go check her out) and marl.
> 
> as always, catch me @justasmalltownai :)


End file.
